Afghan Polity: A Lesson From The Past and Present
August 31, 2021
Historians call Afghanistan, a country at the crossroads of South and Central Asia, the ‘graveyard of empires.’ Alexander The Great, Changez Khan, and Babur, all have tasted defeat in this mountainous expanse. Even the British Empire, on whom the sun never set, could never conquer the whole of Afghanistan. Scholars comment that “Afghans are at peace only when they are at war.”
The mountains of Afghanistan have faced a long list of wars. After three Anglo-Afghan wars between 1839 and 1919, Afghanistan declared ‘independence’ after signing the Treaty of Friendship with Russia. Under King Amanullah’s reign, the nation framed its constitution of 1921 and 1923. Interestingly, the associated citizenship law of 1922 grants citizenship to all the residents, irrespective of their religion. In 1929, Tajiks, an indigenous ethnic group, removed King Amanullah and framed a new constitution in 1931. By 1946, Afghanistan had a parliament, free press, and free elections. A turn in history came soon. In 1952 and then in 1954, General Dawood Khan became the Prime Minister with the backing of the Soviet Union. He introduced a variety of reforms in the political canvas. In 1964, the Grand Assembly called the Loya Jirga was established. It adopted a constitution approved by King Zaheer Shah, and Afghanistan became a constitutional monarchy like Britain. It accepted a bicameral legislature. Notably, this constitution invested the sovereignty in the Nation instead of Allah. Article 2 of the constitution declared Islam as the state religion, but unlike Pakistan and Bangladesh, it mandated the state to perform the rights per the Sunni-Hanafi Doctrine. In simple words, all those who don’t belong to the Hanafi sects became minorities. Nevertheless, non-muslims still had the right to practice their religion.
Things changed drastically in 1978, which set in motion events whose impacts are visible to this day. The superpower Soviet Union invaded and captured the nation in 1978. The tribals of the country felt this as an attack on their independence and autonomy. The Mujahideen hence rose to power to push foreign powers away. Note that India supported this invasion by the Soviet Union. This jostling of power attracted the attention of the US. America supplied weapons and funds to Mujahideen through Pakistan to fight off the Soviets, a brawl that continued for ten years. Soviets retaliated by stationing a massive amount of chemical weapons in Afghanistan. Scholars estimate that this blitz cost over one million lives. A mass genocide with numerous offenses against women still haunts the populations of the nation.
The supply of weapons by the US created a “Monster,” which later became too powerful to be controlled. The situation is enthrallingly similar to the case of Bhindrawala, who originally had the backing of the central government. But unlike 1984, history took another turn. The Soviet Army withdrew on 15th Feb 1989, and the government collapsed in 1992. Mujahideen gained control and framed their draft constitution, “Daavat-e-Islami Afghanistan’ in 1993. This new pillar of power, however, was not stable. Internal ideological tumult broke out, and consequently, the Taliban replaced Mujahideen in 1995. One can’t help but wonder that if Mujahideen were fighting for Islam, why couldn’t their Islam unify them?
The Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha statue in 2001, which was a shameful and condemnable act. Destroying other religious places is not an Islamic value. Records show that even Prophet Muhammad signed treaties with churches to grant them protection. Taliban and other Islamic extremists tend to find their justifications in the Quran. The Quran, however, is not a constitution in itself, but instead, scholars extract law from it. This subjectivity in deriving and interpreting Islamic law has caused numerous conflicts. The Talibani argument of elections having no precedence in the Quran is a flawed position. If the book can talk about consensus, aksariyat, and the principle of consultation, then indeed, democracy is possible. Take the case of Iran, for example, it may have many shortcomings on many fronts, but at least it has a semblance of democracy and election. The regressive Talibani restrictions on women in the Taliban 1.0 rule from 1996-2001 are not concurrent with the precedents of Islam too. Prophet’s first wife, Bibi Khadeeja, was a big and famous trader. Bibi Hafsa kept the manuscripts of the Quran during the reign of the First Caliph. Bibi Ayesha played a crucial role in spreading various Hadees of the Quran to the masses. These arguments again point us to the underlying rationale that jurisprudence is the basis of Islamic law; that is, the rationality and knowledge of the Islamic scholars is the underlying basis. The ‘human’ part is prevalent in Islamic laws, not the ‘divine’ part. A brief comparison between Taliban and Mujahideen leads us to the conclusion that the latter was modern to some extent through their provisions of election, democracy, and republicanism. At the same time, the former is ultra-conservative in its approach. Article 6 of the 1993 constitution of the Mujahideen read, “The Islamic State of Afghanistan is founded on political, social, economic, and cultural institutions which are in accordance with the Islamic principles and rules.” Essentially, if state law and Islamic law were at odds, the state law would prevail, given it does not contradict the basic principles of Islam. In the past, Ulemas, governments, and intellectuals have always conflicted. Mostly the brains have won the arguments, as is visible in the 1964 constitution.
The current situation started taking form with the horrific attacks of 9/11. Post the bombing, the US and NATO attacked Afghanistan, forcing the Taliban out of power. On 22nd Dec 2001, Hamid Karzai became the head of the interim government and later became the president. He appointed a nine-membered drafting committee in 2002 to frame the constitution. It was examined and finalized by a 35-membered constitution commission in 2003. Five hundred two members of the Loya Jirga approved the document in 2004. The current issues have an underlying cause in this same document. It is a general constitutional principle that we must strengthen federalism to unite a country. It becomes even more critical with diversity. Afghanistan is a diverse country. As per the 2020 survey, no single group is in the majority. The politically dominant Pashtoon group is 38.5%. Hazaras stand at 24.5%, Tajiks at 21.3%, Uzbeks at 6%, Emak at 3.2%, and the left are other minority groups. A presidential form of government is not suitable with this distribution, and a parliamentary form is required. The Prime Minister, unlike the President, is answerable and responsible to the parliament.
India adopted the parliament for this reason too. If we want to listen and cater to the local aspirations, then a single elite president sitting in Kabul can not take all decisions. It was the major issue with the 2004 constitution. It over-centralized and remarkably unified the decision-making, which resulted in the appointment of incompetent governors. The non-Pashtoon were unhappy with the new government and opposed the domination of Pashtoons. The president has a separate election and is not responsible to the house, which naturally leads to a lack of legitimacy in the government.
Consequently, it was no surprise that Ashraf Ghani, the sitting president, had no legitimacy but several corruption charges and abandoned Afghanistan in a time of distress. He could not even gain control through elections and appointed an extra-constitutional authority, Abdullah Abdullah, the second in the presidential race, as the CEO. They naturally had to struggle for trust and cooperation from the masses. Internal forces exposed their weakness as soon as the USA decided to pull out.
Sociologically analyzing, identifying Talibanis as Muslims will be an incomplete and flawed view. Their identity is not “Islamic” but rather “Tribal.” Their practices, beliefs, culture, traditions all point us to this conclusion. Ignoring this rationale might lead us to two faulty arguments. One would be the assumption that all Afghans are fanatics, Talibani, and against modern views. Secondly, it will propagate the idea that Muslims elsewhere would also subscribe to this regressive view of societal structure. Both of which are lethal to harmony and fraternity in the international community at large.
What lies in the future of the Taliban as a legitimate is a very uncertain question for now. However, the Taliban has to learn that forced governance will never sustain in the modern world. They have to acknowledge that they are no longer in the 7th century Khilafat reign. If they have changed as they claim, they must accept the products that the modern civilization has perfected over the years. Now that Germany and the USA have resumed dialog.
In contrast, China and Russia have already expressed their will to cooperate. Chances increase that the Taliban will form a government and draft a new constitution. If the constitution is at odds with modernity and its principles, another clash of power is bound to happen in the future.
